Kurumin

Infobox_OS
name = Kurumin


caption = Kurumin 7.0r3
developer = Carlos Morimoto
family = Linux
source_model = Open source
working_state = Current
latest_release_version = NG 8.06
latest_release_date = June 2008
kernel_type = Monolithic kernel
license = Various
website = [http://www.guiadohardware.net/kurumin/ www.guiadohardware.net/kurumin/] [http://www.kurumin-ng.com.br/ www.kurumin-ng.com.br]

Kurumin Linux is a Live CD operating system based on Debian via Knoppix and Kanotix.Fact|date=October 2008 Its main features are the advanced hardware auto-detection (inherited from Knoppix), Brazilian Portuguese language and content and ease of use. The first releases of Kurumin were small enough to fit on a mini-CD, but that goal was abandoned with the release of Kurumin 4.0, when larger packages such as OpenOffice.org and a Java Virtual Machine were included.Fact|date=October 2008 As of release 7.0, the size of the disk image is approximately 603 MB. According to [http://distrowatch.com/ DistroWatch] , Kurumin is the most popular Linux distribution in Brazil .

Version NG 8.06, based on Ubuntu 8.04, was released June 24, 2008.

The distribution boasts a proprietary control center named "ClicaAki" (roughly: "ClickHere"), which features a series of "magic icons" that install software not included in the live CD (including games and proprietary video drivers) and configure a wide range of networking options. It also provides access to the Synaptic package manager.

The name comes from the Tupi word "kurumi", which means boy. The usage of the letter K, instead of the usual Portuguese spelling ("curumi" or "curumim"), brings it in line with KDE (Kurumin's default desktop environment), as well as with Knoppix.

Kurumin has a very good documentation in Brazilian portuguese, with tips popping in the screen related with the task of the user, very intuitive and eyecandy.Fact|date=October 2008 Kurumin control panel( AKA ClicaAki ), which had shortcuts to scripts made by him that performed very useful tasks like downloading and installing free games, apps divided into category and a short description of how they work and their differences, which is very useful for novice users in the linux world. This control panel also had scripts for downloading and automatic configuring 3d video cards( ATI and Nvidia ) a very daring task for novice users which now could do it with just one click. Another very good aspect of the distro is that it had support for many "winmodens", some that had no official packages of drivers in the Debian repository, and also with scripts that automatized the whole task of compiling and configuring the module. With this aspects, Kurumin spread the Gnu/Linux operating system in Brazil in a level never seen before. Within the years of 2004~2006 Kurumin had many users and a very good reputation, but later with the popularization of Ubuntu and the ease of use of Mandriva and Fedora, it rapidly decreased in popularity.Fact|date=October 2008 In the late of 2007 Morimoto said that the project would be halted or have its scope reduced. Hopefully Leandro Santos joined the project and it was born again.

Even though Kurumin was one of the most popular distros in Brazil for end-users, many advanced users and developers criticized it for not sending its patches upstream to the Debian tree, and calling it self a distribution, which some disagree saying it was a CDD, Custom Debian Disk, an install disk with some addons and configurations changes.Kurumin often had problems with stability, some changes made by Morimoto often breaked the system making it unusable after an upgrade, because Morimoto's work wasn't coordinated with Debian's developers.That happen mostly because Kurumin used Debian unstable repositories, as Kurumin didn't have any repo for packages.Another drawback of the distro is that it has a too close approach from Windows, having icons like "My computer", "My music" and others, literally copying folder names and other aspects. Bringing a lot of end-users with low technical skills to linux world is very good, but keeping them in a "windows-like" system, and keeping them "end-users" forever is not so good for the community.

See also

Distributions based on Kurumin Linux:
*Poseidon Linux
*Kalango Linux

External links

* [http://www.guiadohardware.net/kurumin/ Kurumin official site (in Portuguese)]
*
* [http://luciano.kurumin.com.br/ Oca do Kurumin (Fansite)]
* [http://lwn.net/Articles/72881/ LWN: Linux in Brazil]